Making this situation more upsetting, especially for conservationists,
is the fact that this cascading trend could be reversed tomorrow. Left
alone, with enough cover and prey, there are two things tigers do
exceptionally well: adapt and breed. In nature, versatility equals viability,
and in this, tigers rival human beings. Until around 1940, tigers could be
found almost anywhere on the Asian continent from Hong Kong to Iran
and from Bali to Sakhalin Island—and at any habitable altitude: tigers
have been sighted in Nepal at 13,000 feet, and they are still somewhat
common in the semi-amphibious mangrove swamps of the Sundarbans.
Nor are they terribly choosy: as long as quantities are sufficient, tigers
take their protein where and how they find it. And this is precisely where
the tension lies: Panthera tigris and Homo sapiens are actually very much
alike, and we are drawn to many of the same things, if for slightly
different reasons. Both of us demand large territories; both of us have
prodigious appetites for meat; both of us require control over our living
space and are prepared to defend it, and both of us have an enormous
sense of entitlement to the resources around us. If a tiger can poach on
another’s territory, it probably will, and so, of course, will we. A key
difference, however, is that tigers take only what they need. This is why,
given the choice, many Russian hunters and farmers would rather have
tigers around than wolves. The former are much less prone to surplus
killing.
What is happening to tigers now is analogous to what happened to the
Neanderthals twenty-five thousand years ago, when that durable, proven
species found itself unable to withstand the competitive force and
expansion of Homo sapiens and was backed into a corner of southwestern
Europe. There would have been a point when their numbers, too, began to
visibly shrink, and falter, and finally disappear. There would have been a
last one. Many human tribes have met the same fate since then, and many
more are meeting it now. Today, it occurs not so much by death as by
dilution: through resettlement, religious and economic conversion, and
intermarriage, gradually the skills, stories, and languages fade away.
Needless to say, once sheltered by a roof, carried in a car, and fed from a
can, very few humans willingly return to sleeping on the ground, walking
ron
(Ron)
#1